Ghost of the Well of Souls

Magid

“I must say that this is unprecedented. I shall certainly complain to the line about this!” Algensor, the Kehudan, was still muttering. The silvery buglike creature had just learned that the long route the Bay of Vessali normally took, which swung out and passed briefly through her native hex before swinging back in toward Pyron, had been altered without warning.

They had come through the hurricane with some damage, but apparently the kind of damage the crew considered “normal” for that type of run, and they managed to clear the “short leg” of Mogari in under two days instead of the usual four or five for a nontech hex. Once the boilers had been brought back up and put back on line, it appeared that all was getting back to normal. It wasn’t until they passed through Kodon and Suffok and entered the high-tech hex of Magid that the announcement had been made of a course change.

In fact, even Jaysu had been unaware of any changes until, passing by the purser’s office one afternoon, she’d overheard the Kehudans complaining loudly.

“I am sorry, madam, but we have a technical problem and need to put in at a high-tech repair yard,” the little purser was saying. “Can’t safely make it the normal route, nope nope.”

“That is what your line always says when it wants to deviate from a route!” Algensor responded huffily. “I have a schedule, too, you know!”

“Can’t do anything, sorry, sorry, nope nope,” the purser continued. “You can complain to the captain, but we’ll still land in Alkazar tomorrow morning. We’ll get you on another ship as soon as possible, all free, yep yep.”

“Surely I cannot be the only one inconvenienced by this!”

But according to the purser, she was the only one. About a third of the cargo would be offloaded in Alkazar because it could be transshipped inland as easily from there as from Pyron, and the rest would be dropped off at the Pyron stop as usual. By unloading so much in Alkazar, in fact, they could take on some new cargo they hadn’t planned on getting.

Jaysu was confused by this.

“You must stop thinking of those hexes out there as empty sea,” Wally tried explaining to her. “They are as much ship’s destinations, or at least potential destinations, as ports. Cargo can be lowered to them and raised to the ship. There just wasn’t much business out there this trip, so they decided to change routes. Very fortuitous, in fact, for me and my associates, as we’d much prefer Alkazar to Pyron.”

She was surprised. “You will be getting off there, then?”

“Indeed yes, unless there is some hitch that develops. The Alkazarians, frankly, are somewhat xenophobic. They maintain the port and there is an entire multiracial colony and yard there, but nobody is allowed outside of the port region. It’s a kind of little hex unto its own. Getting permission to cross into the country proper can be a problem, although I believe I can get those clearances. It will save time.”

She was puzzled. “If they deal with everyone in a shipping port, why do they not like anyone elsewhere?”

The spider creature never ceased being amazed at her naivete. “My dear, they want what other places make, and they have things to export so they can pay for them. But beyond that, it is a sad country for a high-tech hex. A rigid military dictatorship, harsh and ruthless. It has been called a computerized madhouse, but it’s the people who are mad, or so I’m told. I haven’t been here before, but I’ve been in places like it.”

“What makes you think, then, that such people would allow you to cross?”

Wally paused a moment, then responded, “Well, let us just say that we are working for clients that have the respect of the locals here. Not friends, not allies, but, well, ‘respect’ may well be the correct word. Never mind. It is all just silly politics.”

“It is too bad that I, too, could not use their space. It would make my journey shorter, and I am so very anxious to get off this ship.”

“I wish I could help you, but I’m afraid I’m helpless in this situation. I’m going to be fortunate to get them to let me and my associates through. You understand.”

He was lying, but not in a way that threatened her. She had the strong impression that Wally had arranged this little detour in advance. She wondered how much it had cost his employers.

A mosaic of the eastern ocean and the ship’s regular routes was on the rear lounge wall. It had been one of the few points of interest for her in the otherwise boring passage, save the time she stared out at a hurricane.

She couldn’t read the map, of course; she doubted if she’d ever understand those odd squiggles and designs. Still, she knew which one was Ambora, and which one was Quislon, and the three types of hexes were color coded, so, if everybody was right, they were going to put in on the northwest point of Alkazar, one hex north of Quislon. There was a nontech hex between Magid and the hex leading into Pyron, though, which meant a few wasted days sailing past where she wanted to go so that she could put in, travel through half of Pyron, and then back halfway through Quislon toward Alkazar again. It didn’t make much sense. It would also get her to where she was supposed to be going only in the nick of time, and even then only if all went just perfectly, and if this diversion was truly the result of bribes rather than damage. Otherwise, she might not even be able to make Pyron in time, and would have done all this for nothing.

There was no sense of being near land throughout the day, but Jaysu could almost smell it. The birds also tended to show up in far greater numbers than at sea, and there were large fish and marine mammals both in the water, following, or even playing a game of derring-do ahead of the great ship.

Because Magid was a high-tech hex, the last day before hitting port was a very comfortable one. Alkazar, too, was a high-tech hex, so communications and navigation exchanges were possible ship-to-shore.

They were due to land in the very early morning hours, but all passengers were assured that they would not be required to waken, let alone leave the ship, until at least three hours after sunup. Representatives would meet them dockside after breakfast and take them to temporary housing or arrange for alternative passages.

She wondered who or what would contact her, or if she was just stuck in the clutches of the shipping line. She’d thought it odd that, after that first dramatic encounter with the Ixthansan, Eggy, she’d not been contacted again at any time by anyone.

Jaysu was out enjoying the air when she saw the two little creatures who were associates of Wally on the forward rail, where she generally liked to stand. Maximum inward breeze, good speed, where you’d want to be if you had to fly in a hurry off this deck.

She hadn’t liked either one and had stayed away from them. They radiated evil, and didn’t disguise their nastiness nor their seeming contempt for her.

The little apelike creatures, each no more than a meter tall, with their cherubic black wings and outlandish uniformlike clothes, did not look threatening, but neither she nor many of the other passengers and crew needed any kind of sixth sense to think them dangerous.

They chattered away to each other in a kind of native code that nobody’s translator ever picked up and straightened out; it was apparently designed with some sort of security in mind. Then, as she watched, the pair turned, climbed up on the top rail side by side, holding on with those large feet that looked exactly like their hands, and worked the same as well, and, to her astonishment, launched themselves into the air.

Until now, she’d never been convinced that creatures with such wings could truly fly, but clearly they could and did, and quite well, too, although they used a great deal of energy flapping those wings in order to get away from the influence of the ship and into updrafts. Once there, however, they needed just a little correction now and then, and otherwise were sailing with the birds.

She hadn’t realized until then how much she wanted to do that, as well, but it was unlikely she’d get the chance where they were heading now. She watched them circle the ship once, gaining altitude and then setting off due south, the same direction the ship was traveling, until they were quickly out of even her best telescoping sight.

It didn’t take a genius to know where they were going now that they had indeed left. Going ahead to this Alkazar, probably getting there hours ahead of the ship, and thus beginning the process of arranging passage through the mysterious place.

She wondered what it must be like, this Alkazar, that could maintain a major port and had all of these high-tech luxuries yet sounded like such a sad and perhaps evil place.

Perhaps those luxuries, those machines that could do things better than people could, were good for the body but not the soul, she thought. Maybe they were the corruptors. She didn’t have enough experience to know for sure, but she had the feeling that she’d find out soon enough.

After a fine meal and a walk and stretch on the deck, she still couldn’t see land, but there were more than just birds now to tell her that they were coming in.

Now there were boats. Small ones, generally, although a couple looked elaborate and even had smokestacks. All seemed to be engaged in fishing at some level, indicating that whoever lived in Magid was more likely on the bottom of the sea than near the top, and that these waters were filled with wildlife from that ocean.

The boats varied in design, and she noticed that almost all of them were crewed by single race crews, not the polyglot that staffed the Bay of Vessali. Most were strange to her, although she recognized a few sleek, smooth, black vessels as being from Pyron. The strange creatures that seemed both giant snakes and men were hard to miss.

Others included creatures with shells, creatures with lots of tentacles, creatures that seemed to ooze up and down masts and in and out of the water, tall creatures with big snouts, floppy ears, and black noses, and even two that were clearly Ixthansan. She stared at each of those as they passed, wondering if Eggy or someone affiliated with him was on either, but she knew that was unlikely. To be here, Eggy would have had to travel the same distance as she, and through that storm or the long way around it. Still, if that race was allied with Core’s group, then one or both of these small fishing vessels might well be more than it appeared.

She was still standing there, staring at them, and noticing that they were often staring at her, too, if they spotted her, when the purser found her.

“Pardon, missy. Got radio message for Madam Jaysu, yep yep.”

She frowned. “What is a radio?”

“Thing that sends talk or code through the air. Easy way to get messages, other stuff, when in high-tech areas, yep yep. Since both Magid and Alkazar are high-tech, can get messages back and forth, no problem, nope nope.” He held out a small tray with an envelope on it.

She took the envelope and opened it, but then sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I do not know how to read this.”

The little creature seemed almost embarrassed to hear that. “Sorry. Give. With your permission, I’ll read?”

“Please do,” she invited him. She had no bad feelings about being illiterate, contrary to what the purser thought. She couldn’t see much use for it anyway.

“It is from the Pyron consul in Kolznar Colony. That’s where we’re going. Big port of Alkazar.”

“The Pyron council?”

“Nope nope. Consul. Like junior ambassador. Ambassadors all in Zone, but sometimes have consuls in other countries where business is done. Faster.”

“Well, what does this consul say?”

“Says you will not have to stay on ship to Pyron. Consul has arranged for passage to your destination from Kolznar. Says you will be met at pier when we dock. Warns you not to fly to or in Alkazar. Can be big trouble, yep yep.”

That was both good news and bad news. The good news was that she was actually going to get off this thing and hit land! But the instructions not to fly—that was almost crushing. It was inside her, something she had to continually fight not doing even now. To still be a groundling even on land was not something she’d thought would happen.

“Purser?”

“Madam?”

“How is it that you read the writings of Pyron? Do you read all the tongues of the people you transport?”

“Nope nope. Only read Kuall and Commercand. Commercand is language used by all who travel and trade between hexes. Simple, direct, but all the same no matter what tongue you think in. Makes trade possible. Also used in diplomacy, yep yep. That’s what this note is in. If somebody can write it, odds are there will always be somebody else where you are who can read it.”

“How long until we get in?”

“About two hours, no more, yep yep,” the purser responded, ripping up the note into little pieces and then putting the pieces back into the envelope. She thought it an interesting custom. “May take a little while to dock the ship, though. They’re always busy and it’s tricky. We’ll get pilot in about an hour, yep yep. Then it’s in their hands.”

“Indeed? What is a pilot?”

“Captain with no ship but knows the harbors. Pilot takes over to dock ships in big ports and get them out. Otherwise we crash into things. Very convenient, yep yep.”

She had to agree with that, although the job never would have occurred to her.

She wondered about the little horrors who’d taken off and flown into this Kolznar the previous night. If she could not fly, then why could they?

She decided to go back up to her cabin and get together the few things she had with her, put them in the waist pack, and then watch the landing. It would even be interesting to see this pilot creature; he, she, or it was unlikely to be of Magid, considering, and so would almost certainly be Alkazarian.

She walked back, unlocked the door, and walked in. Almost immediately she sensed a wrongness about it, although she was more curious than afraid, considering how long she’d been aboard and that she knew just about everybody.

The door shut behind her, and she realized that the lamp was out. This wasn’t unusual in a high-tech hex, but normally there was a kind of glowing bar that went on that allowed you to see well enough for the basics. Now, suddenly, it was pitch-black.

She knew she was not alone.

She could have sensed it before, but had not been thinking about such things. Now, though, all her senses were on full alert because of the darkness, and she knew not only that someone else was there, but who it was, and that was a shock.

“That is far enough,” said a familiar voice. “I have in my hands a weapon that can fry you like a roasted bird in an instant, and I see just fine in the infrared, so I can see you as clearly as if we were on deck.”

“Then why do you not use it and kill me? That is what you came in here for,” Jaysu responded, oddly calm and sounding not at all terrified. She realized then that she should have known from the beginning that Algensor, the Kehudan, was not on the up and up. Nobody took a ship to return to their home hex. You just went through a Zone Gate. Some detective she was!

“I need to know who sent you the message you just received, and what it said,” the Kehudan told her, becoming unnerved by Jaysu’s lack of panic.

“I do not believe that concerns you,” she told the agent calmly. Her heightened senses located the creature precisely and saw her with greater clarity than the Kehudan could have imagined. “I think you might as well shoot me.”

Algensor wasn’t prepared for this. “Do you understand what I am saying, foolish shaman? Tell me or I will shoot you!”

“But if I tell you, then you will shoot me anyway, so why give you anything for the deed?”

Jaysu saw the numbers tied to the glowing strings, the numbers she did not understand but did not have to, since the meaning was forming unbidden in her mind. She knew exactly what did what, and it was as simple as moving her own finger.

“Then perhaps I will give you pain,” the Kehudan threatened. “Sear off some of those wings, and perhaps carve off the hands and feet. Talk!”

“You have no idea of pain,” Jaysu told her. “You have no idea what an Amboran must undergo to get to the High Priestess level. I have experienced such pain as you can never comprehend, and I cannot be threatened by it.”

“I don’t know if you’re more alien than I believed or just ignorant and naive, but I have no more time to waste on this. Last chance. What was in the message and who sent it?”

“How should I know?” Jaysu mocked her. “I can’t read, you know.”

Seething with frustration, Algensor pulled the trigger on the energy pistol, aiming at Jaysu’s feet.

Nothing happened.

Jaysu smiled to herself. “Now what will you do?” she asked the creature.

Algensor was unnerved by the failure of the gun. Clearly, she’d tested it to make sure it was fully energized and operational, but even as she tried to fire it repeatedly, it would not work.

“Try shooting into the toilet,” Jaysu suggested. “Messy, but it will work.”

Algensor was so angry she did just that, firing into the toilet area. There was a crack and a flash that illuminated the cabin for an instant, and the sound of something sizzling.

The Kehudan brought the pistol back up and fired at Jaysu.

Again the pistol refused to work.

She pointed to the roostlike sleep box and set the thing on fire, and managed to hit the cabin door. But when she aimed at Jaysu, the gun would not fire.

“Then I’ll get you with poison!” the Kehudan snarled, and started toward Jaysu, who was only a few meters away. But Algensor’s ample feet didn’t seem to work. She strained, but she couldn’t move toward the Amboran.

Now it was the would-be assassin’s turn to panic. “You! You’re doing this to me, aren’t you?”

“My oaths will not allow me to let someone harm another, but basically it is simply instinct. I am reacting to your threat.” Jaysu turned, picked up her pack, checked for a few basics, and deciding that anything she didn’t have she could replace or do without, put it on.

“Then you’re not going to kill me?”

Jaysu sighed and shook her head in pity. “I cannot deliberately harm another thinking being,” she told the Kehudan. “Still, if you tell me who sent you, or hired you, to do this, I will allow you to walk out of the cabin and off the ship when it docks.”

Algensor wasn’t fully cowed, although she was defeated. “Foolish girl! Don’t you realize that almost every passenger on this ship works for your enemies?”

“I suspected as much, but it seemed too much trouble to go to just for me. I simply wish to know what it is that allows you to try and take my life when I am no threat to you. Reward? At the command of your people? Some cause?”

“Most of us work for reward,” the Kehudan admitted. “But some of us also work for our governments. Mine is terrified of the alliance that has grown up so quickly around Chalidang, and the way we live, just atop the waves, makes us very vulnerable to any sort of military attack. It was they who instructed me that you were not to get off this ship. You have stopped me, but I do not see how you are going to stop the others.”

“The same way,” Jaysu responded matter-of-factly. “Now I wish you to remain here until we are at the dock. Once we are in port, you may emerge and leave the ship so long as you do not have hold of that weapon. The weapon must stay here.” She turned and opened the door, then looked back, seeing in the light flooding into the cabin the silvery insectlike creature that was to have killed her, and a very nasty looking thing in her tentacles that must be the pistol.

“It was a message from the Pyron chief in this place we are going to,” Jaysu said. “All it said was that I was to get off the ship and be met there. Happy now?”

And with that, Jaysu stepped out of the cabin and let the door close.

She did wonder how long it would take before the Kehudan stopped fighting and dropped the pistol so she could leave, but it wasn’t really her affair.

Jaysu still could not understand why they were all so afraid of her. What could she do? She didn’t even understand why Core thought she could be of value in this affair.

She wasn’t completely confident, either, in her ability to remain alive through it. True, she had little to worry about in these kinds of situations, but here, in high-tech areas, she was still vulnerable to long-range weapons fired without warning. She would never detect the hostile intent in time, let alone pick it out.

She had no desire to remain in a high-tech hex for long. Not now, particularly.

She wondered if Wally would try and pounce on her. She decided that being out on deck was no more or less dangerous than being inside. On deck, someone in one of those boats might take a shot at her, but inside, well, Wally had been the one creature she’d not detected fully until he’d moved. Best not to give him any advantage.

When she got back to her viewing area just below the wheelhouse, she saw the pilot boat coming out to meet them. It was an ugly little craft, dull gray and with a gun of some kind mounted forward. It didn’t look like the kind of craft anyone would use just to take a harbor expert out and back; it looked more like a craft you’d run up rivers and through harbors looking for criminals or smugglers.

If the Alkazarians were as ugly and mean-looking as their craft, she could see why everybody was nervous about them.

But as it turned out, they weren’t. They were, if anything, downright cute.

Averaging only a bit over a meter high, the Alkazarian crew of the pilot boat looked like nothing so much as flurry little animated toy bears or bear cubs. They were, in fact, bipeds, with short three-fingered hands with opposable thumbs, but otherwise they were darling little things, with blow-dry fluffy brown fur, little black button eyes, and everything else that said ursine. The black uniforms with leather belts and lots of braid, and the little hats that sat between their pointed ears, added to the comic effect, and they leaped and jumped around like small children preparing to match speed and direction with the large ship, from which a metallic stairway had been lowered.

She knew she should be laughing at their cute antics, but her other senses were almost screaming at her to ignore appearances. These little creatures radiated a cold, hard evil, an inner soul that recognized only fear and the instigation of fear as valid emotions. Even Wally hadn’t been as dead inside as any of those little creatures.

Still, as an Alkazarian in a particularly ornate decorated uniform walked to the side of the boat and then, after judging distance and motion, made an effortless leap to the stair and started up, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the others. Impressions flooded into her mind, ugly impressions, like those of a nightmare. Fleeting images of these little creatures running in crazed packs, thrilled by the chase, then taking one of their own and killing them and—eating their own! Cannibals? It was—ghoulish.

They had high technology, trade, all this. Why would they revert to savagery, and with such enjoyment?

She hoped she was seeing some vestigial memory of an ancient past, but deep down she knew she was not. The ones on that boat had been in that pack, and had eaten of their own, and to them it was not an unpleasant memory.

She didn’t like these little creatures one bit.

In fact, she was beginning to wonder if there were any alien creatures, by which she meant not Amborans, that she could trust. She’d met few here, although the little purser and the crew in general had treated her well. Still, that was their job.

Could it be that the only ones she could truly trust in all this were the sinister looking Pyrons?

Land was visible now, dead ahead, a definite shoreline, and almost dead center in it, a tall mountain range that looked not unlike home. It did not seem to stretch from horizon to horizon, though, but was sharply vertical only in that central area and then tapered away on both sides. It was odd-looking, and the ship had to move in much closer in order for her to realize that it was a V-shaped formation whose base reached the coast but fanned out from it diagonally inland.

It was the tall center of that mountain at the base of the V that they were headed for, and soon it began to dominate the skyline to the south. It was not volcanic; there were layers of rock going up into the sky for several kilometers, the tallest mountain she’d ever seen by far, and the rest of the range was just about as tall.

It was quite warm at the surface, even hot, but there was snow up on those peaks, and from various points along the mountainside there were hundreds of waterfalls.

The mountain did not quite reach the sea; instead there was a half bowl at the base that was not much above sea level but was hundreds of square kilometers in size, and it was not empty.

The city at the bottom of the mountain had its own landscape, this one artificial, consisting of large scale docks, even dry-docks, giant warehouses, and, beyond the waterfront, densely packed high rises that went back almost to the mountain itself and off on either side as far as she could see.

It was a huge, bustling, dramatic, modern city that did not look like it belonged there. It was difficult to believe that creatures such as the Alkazarians could have built it.

There was certainly an inconsistency of styles. Buildings were very different from one another, in shape, in form, in color, in every way she could think of save that they were almost all high rises. It was almost as if a portion of Zone were built not inside enclosed and fixed quarters, but along this harbor, each race carving out its own little piece of itself.

And, of course, she realized that this was exactly what she was seeing. The Alkazarians might own the place, but it wasn’t theirs in spirit. It was, rather, a place that existed because the creatures of the hex realized what a profitable location they had.

She looked back and up to the bridge area and saw the little Alkazarian, probably standing on a box or something to see, on one of the outside “wings” next to the wheelhouse, barking orders in a high-pitched voice to the helmsman inside. Occasionally he’d jump down and vanish inside, then run back out again, and it was apparent that he was running the ship now.

She was glad somebody was. The harbor was so crowded with ships big and small, and more boats of all sizes than could be counted, that she didn’t see how they were going to come in without hitting things.

Like the buildings and the fishing vessels offshore, it seemed there were a hundred races here, each in their unique vessels. To her surprise, there were even two other large steamers in the same class as the Bay of Vessali in port; the Bay, in fact, was heading for a long pier that would put her in back of another similar ship and on the other side of a third. The major differences were in the colors on the superstructures and smokestacks, and the flags that flew from the sterns.

They slid in smoothly, and more Alkazarians in dull blue uniforms with no particular adornment threw ropes up to places where Bay crewmen were perched to fix the big ship in place. The engines were cut; movement suddenly stopped, save for a small jerkiness as the ship struck the dock while straightening out. Then there was one long, deafening blast on the steam whistle that seemed to go on forever, and it was over.

She heard yells and the sounds of engines from the other side of the big ship. Curious, she went over there and saw several small, squat, ugly little boats with single stacks going away, back out into the harbor. It was only then that she realized how the big ships docked: they were guided in by the little boats.

The city and the mountain behind, which rose to impossible heights in the sky creating a virtual wall, were now all that she could see forward. She decided it might be time to get off the ship, but wasn’t sure how to do it. She’d not gotten on in the usual way, and she’d never been in a port before, and it only now occurred to her that she didn’t know where the door was.

One of the crewmen, an octopuslike creature, only it breathed air, was oozing down from the rigging nearby. She approached it and called out, “Excuse me, but how do I go off?”

The creature stopped, two eyes within the fluid mass seemed to float until they were looking at her, and it replied, from somewhere within, “One deck down, this side, madam. Don’t worry—you will see it. Just use the center stairs.”

She thanked it, walked back along the deck and went in amidships and down the central staircase one deck. The crewman was right. Most of the other passengers were already there, along with the purser and chief steward. She didn’t see Algensor, but Wally was prominent.

“Attention, please!” the purser shouted, and after several attempts they did quiet down. “Please excuse this problem! If you need to go on immediately to another destination, or have no travel documents, then inform the company agent at the bottom of the gangplank and we will arrange to put you up until we can transfer you. If you have your documents, proceed to Tolls and Tariffs inside the terminal. From there, go to our office inside and we will arrange for your stay here and passage to your final destination. Thank you!”

All the affectations the little creature had in his speech and manner seemed to vanish. She doubted if that had been an act; rather, this was duty overriding habit.

She wasn’t sure which category she was in, and looked through the small bag she wore. They had sent her some papers, but since she couldn’t read them, she had no idea what they might be, other than the credit voucher that had been used for passage and might still be worth something here. Supposedly that’s how they did things between hexes, with these vouchers.

One of the papers did look official, though, and even had a very bad and grainy black and white picture of her face she could hardly recognize. She suspected it was a travel document, but decided to ask.

None of the other passengers seemed surprised to see her, at least not from her scan. She wondered if Algensor had taken matters into her own hands without explicit orders. Certainly the Kehudan hadn’t radiated a threat earlier in the voyage.

Wally seemed to radiate some odd pleasure at seeing her, as if he hadn’t expected her to live but was, for some reason, glad she still did. It was curious. She still hadn’t figured him out, at least in relation to herself.

The gangplank wasn’t all that stable and seemed to move a bit up and down, but it wasn’t far from the door in the ship’s side to the dock, and she managed.

The creature on the other side was another of the elephantine types, like the first mate, with the two-handed nose trunk and funny little uniform. She began to suspect that these creatures were in fact the owners of the ship and the line, although you could never be sure about such things. Still, this one towered over her.

“Excuse me, but I do not know if I have the proper papers or not,” she told him, offering the one with her picture.

The split trunk twitched, one of the “hands” took the paper and brought it up to his eye level. He read it for a moment, then offered it back.

“This should be sufficient,” he told her. “Most hexes don’t even require this sort of nonsense, but this isn’t most hexes. Proceed on down the pier and into the building at the end. Just be polite and show this to the Alkazarian at the entrance. When you clear, go to our office.”

She thanked him, and, clutching the paper, walked down the pier, past not only her vessel but the one in front. Just when she wondered if she’d walked too far over hard ground, she was at the entrance.

This Alkazarian looked like the others, but he radiated suspicion and disdain. Still, he seemed taken aback by her. “And just what are you?” he asked officiously.

“I am Jaysu, High Priestess of the Great Falcon, an Amboran,” she responded.

“That right? Huh! That’s some set of wings there.” He looked at the paper and seemed to read every single word of it. Finally, he nodded to himself, took out a fancy printed rectangular sheet, stamped it, wrote something on it, then stapled it to the sheet and handed it back.

“Don’t lose this,” he warned her, “and show it on demand to anyone in authority, which means anyone of my race. You can do nothing here without it. When you leave the country, you must surrender this paper to the official on the way out along with any others you might get or they will arrest you. Please do not take this lightly. Next!”

And with that she was through. Still, the speech was a little scary; she carefully folded the paper with its attachment, put it in her travel case and sealed it tightly. The last thing she wanted was to be arrested in a place like this.

She looked for the steamer company office, but instead saw a Pyron standing not too far away, looking at her with those serpent’s eyes.

They were such a strange and eerie race to look at. She thought of them as serpents who crawled on their bellies, but she saw that they did have legs, partially cloaked by the enormous hoods. Still, they looked like giant snakes rearing up and poised to strike, and she wasn’t at all comfortable with their appearance, even though this one was radiating no threat at all. She was going to have to get used to looking only inside these different creatures. Cuddly little bears with the souls of mass murderers; fanged, giant serpentlike creatures who were, if not saints, at least ordinary people: she wondered how those who couldn’t look beneath managed to cope.

The Pyron stepped forward, still moving as if slithering on its belly, even though it wasn’t proportionately long enough to do that. “You are Jaysu? I am First Consul Auglack of Pyron. You received my message?”

“Yes, yes, sir, I did,” she managed. “It was quite a surprise. In fact, it was a surprise to be here at all.”

“Well, someone should have warned you. They do this all the time, in fact, when they don’t have a cargo in mid-ocean. This is, quite frankly, a very pleasant city overall for a ship’s crew to stay over in when they spend all that time at sea, and they look forward to putting in for minor repairs most times. The company doesn’t mind unless it has business on the wider route. We weren’t positive from the manifest that they were doing it this time, but we were ready if and when they did. Will you come with me, please?”

“Yes, sir. Certainly. But you must bear with me. My race is not built for long walks on this hard ground.”

The consul chuckled. “Hard gr— Oh, you mean the floor! Yes, I can see where your feet aren’t well-suited for that. Well, we will walk as little as we must, I promise. First things first. How do I address you?”

“Sir? I do not understand.”

“You are a cleric of some kind, I know. Clerics tend to have titles beyond Citizen or Madam, just as politicians do. They call me Excellency in my official capacity, otherwise I am just ‘sir’ or ‘mister.’ I know religious leaders who are addressed as Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Reverend, Doctor, Holiness, Most High, and about a dozen other titles. How should you be addressed?”

“We do not go in much for that sort of thing,” she told him. “Jaysu is fine. My title is important when I am introducing myself or acting in a religious capacity, but it is just a title, just as yours is, First Consul, if I hear right.”

“Very well, then. It is simply important in my post that no one be insulted by those around me failing to use a title of respect. If Jaysu is what you like, then that is what we will use. How was the voyage?”

“Not very good, overall. Boring for much of it, then frightening in stormy seas. And, of course, that doesn’t even include the attempt to kill me this morning.”

The consul stopped. “I beg your pardon?”

“A Kehudan, Algensor, tried to shoot me.”

“Indeed? And it missed?”

“No, she did not miss. When it came time, she simply could not do it.”

The consul let it go at that, not realizing how literal his guest might be.

“This was the only attempt on you? I mean, not that we expected even that, but there were no others aboard who appeared to have less than noble intentions toward you?”

“There was this one creature, a giant, hairy green spiderlike thing, that I knew from the start was not my friend, yet at no time did he act against me or even pump me for information. He had two hideous little winged henchmen, but they were kept back, or so I had the impression, by their master. Both of them flew off to this city last night.”

“Indeed? That is most interesting. Normally anything that crossed into Alkazar, airborne or otherwise, would have been vaporized without question if detected. Either they landed on a boat just short of the border or they were expected. Most interesting. Oh, we received your photographs, by the way. Most useful. I’m sure your spider and little flying things are there, as is the Kehudan. The spider’s the one to watch. He’s been at the scene of other things such as this, and is absolutely in the service of Chalidang. We’ve been unable to get anything on his background, which is quite unusual and suggests that he might well be an import from outside the Well World whom, for whatever reasons, his new people are keeping well-hidden.”

“Well, he called himself Wally,’ if that is any clue. He said I could not pronounce his real one.”

“Probably true. You probably couldn’t pronounce mine, nor I yours, either, but that hasn’t stopped us. Ah, here we are.”

“Here” turned out to be a moving sidewalk just outside the shipping terminal. It appeared that the whole city was covered with these, moving along at a steady but not very fast clip. They were clearly designed as mass transportation; there were some hovering, flying vehicles, all looking very sinister, darting about overhead and going between the buildings and such, but ground transport was via these moving belts.

“I want to point out something to you, although you’ll not be here long enough to really appreciate how paranoid you can get in this town,” the consul said as he stepped on. After a moment’s hesitation, she did likewise, and gripped the small handrail.

The city might have seemed majestic, even beautiful to some, but to her it felt unnatural, wrong, claustrophobic. She didn’t like it one bit. It wasn’t right to cram so many people into such a small space. It was filled with a thick atmosphere of the most awful odors, and a cacophony of sounds that made her head hurt.

“See those small posts every fifty meters or so alongside the walkways?” the Pyron asked.

She looked and nodded. There was so much filling every view that she’d barely noticed them.

“Well, on each are tiny little high-resolution cameras showing what’s going on in all directions. At all times when you are anywhere in this city, and maybe in this whole godforsaken country, you are being watched. Inside every building, every corridor inside the buildings, same thing.”

“Goodness! Why? And by who?”

“Alkazarian Security Police and their watch computers, which are programmed to alert them to anything suspicious. By their standards that means two people whispering who can’t be picked up by their hidden sound monitors. We found them embedded in our offices and in our diplomatic quarters, which is highly improper and illegal, of course, but they deny it and it’s their city. It’s our belief that there isn’t a single place you can go, or anything you can say or do here, that isn’t monitored. Of course, we have our own ways of blocking the ones inside our diplomatic areas, but otherwise even going to the toilet, pardon, is a public act to them.”

“How can anyone live like that?” she asked him.

“Because they have no choice. The foreigners here, like us, and many of those you see all over here, are here because it’s their job and it’s money. The pay is exceptional here because of the stress, but you can tune it out, take it for granted after a while, kind of build your own safeguards and go about your business. The services of a great city are here as well. Entertainment zones, any kind of goods or services one might desire, even if illicit, plus many of the comforts of home, major shopping with no tariffs, all that. And all completely safe. There are no murders here, no theft to speak of, not even much littering. Not when they’re watching. In an odd way, it makes my job easier as well. If one of my people vanishes, I know immediately that the Alkazarian government has him or her because they are the only ones who could.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to be here under these conditions!”

“Well, they are a bit more tolerant of us foreigners,” the consul told her. “They can’t have the absolutely free hand they have with their own people, poor devils, because they know that if they got too nasty or intrusive, we’d simply all pack up and leave. It’s a wonderful natural harbor at a convenient spot, but it’s not the only one, and it’s not a place that is essential, only convenient. There is a difference. And if we pack up and leave, well, they are a high technology hex, it is true, but they are resource poor. Without the import of raw materials and the export of sophisticated manufactured goods at cheap prices, it would quickly become a very bleak place indeed. Ah, we switch here to the diagonal belt on the right side. Not much farther.”

Once he’d pointed out the cameras, she couldn’t get them out of her mind. What kind of people would create such a system, and what sort of people would willingly live under it? A very frightened and insecure system, surely. A meter tall and only of average strength… She wondered if perhaps they were petrified of the outside world just walking all over them. And petrified that, if they did not keep their own people even more cowed, such leaders might well be eaten by their citizens.

The walkways ended at junctions, and there was then a short platform from which other walkways going in different directions began. It was a very efficient system, if you knew where you were going.

Where they were going turned out to be a section that actually had a few trees and an angle that permitted sufficient sunlight to keep them from dying. In this small area the buildings were not huge, but businesslike in size, although each had a different design echoing the flavor of the high rises. The one that they got off at was an imposing structure, a cluster of buildings merging into one another, each shaped somewhat like a common beehive.

“This is the Consulate of Pyron,” her host informed her. “Once inside, you will not be photographed or recorded, and you’ll be legally on Pyron soil. You’ll stay here for the day and night, and then we’ll get you on your way early tomorrow morning, if that is all right.”

“Yes, of course,” she answered, knowing but not letting him know that she had detected the lies among the truth. She was no less under observation in there than out here; she was just switching observers from the Alkazarians to the Pyrons.

It had not occurred to her to ever ask anyone what sort of government these people had in their homeland. She supposed it was just more naivete—that the ones on her side weren’t the ones she had to worry about. She wondered if that was a true assessment of the situation. If this venerated object were assembled, would its power be any less tempting to those who wished to stop Josich from doing it?

“I only need to know,” she told him, “when I can fly again. I have physical as well as emotional needs to do so, having been unable to do it for so long now. I have no other way to work off the energy, and I am feeling out of sorts because of that.”

“I apologize for that,” the consul answered, apparently sincerely, “but it must remain a sacrifice until you are out of this country. They will kill anyone who flies over any of their land except their own vehicles. Once you are in Quislon, there should be no problems, and it is a nontech hex anyway. In fact, we are banking on you being able to fly to the capital, as it will get you there before anyone else from the ship might reach it.”

“From the ship? You think they are heading there?”

“I think insofar as your spider friend and his companions, you can wager money on it and be certain of winning.”